impalalord:

I wasn’t sure when I realized it. It could have been during the start of the siege, or perhaps it was at those short, bloody moments when I surrendered myself to the blood fury of my race. We Solans are…emotional. We feel everything so strongly that we have encased our society in layers of pomp and circumstance, law and rule to insulate us from the uglier, more painful emotions. We pride ourselves on it. 

That is why, when I saw the full weight of a humans fury, I was stunned into sheer silence. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I expected to see these men, stripped of their homes and dignity to let loose hateful roars, rebel yells of sheer unadulterated defiance as they tore through the enemy ranks.

Instead, I was shown a rare and far more unnerving display. They advanced. Silent. Calm. Collected. Eyes like gimlets, glittering with sheer, focused hate. Their enemy was upon them, and they moved without a wasted thought, without breath wasted. Somewhere inside me, a primal, broken fear escaped my lips, a small cry of incredulity that signaled my defeat. These mere men were destroying us. These apes were rending our ranks apart with precision that was equal parts uncanny and unnerving.

After I was captured, and I was stood in front of the tribunal, I recounted my tales. They seemed unsurprised by this act of valour, noting it as “The Battle of Carveil,” and nothing more. I was put into a dungeon, held for ransom, and eventually ransomed off back to my family. But I will never forget those haunting, dead stares. There is no explanation for the fear me and fellow soldiers felt from those apes, dressed in heavy burdens of iron, their eyes shining through the dark veils of their helms, their voices silent, their bodies steady and calm. They were a fury that I have never felt, the fury of a creature pushed so far into darkness that they become it. I realize, only now, that compared to them, we are merely spectators, living in borrowed shells, made of wildly swinging emotions. 

I’m sorry; you asked me a simple question and I gave you such a long answer. Why do I fear the humans? Because, contrary to the belief of many of our kin, the sons of men are not monsters. They have a more terrifying, and insidious feature.

They, to a man, can become them.